Built on meticulous, diligent research, this book is key reading for those interested in geopolitical issues.
Two respected journalists delve into Israel’s moves to counter Iran’s nuclear gambit.
The Middle East has long been a labyrinth of age-old grudges and ever shifting allegiances. In the past two decades, Iran has emerged as a player with nuclear ambitions, prompting Israel to think of the nation as one of its major enemies. Bob and Evyatar, both contributors to the Jerusalem Post, have deep connections to Israel’s security agencies and government processes, and they begin their book with Mossad’s theft of a truckload—literally—of documents from Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018. The material provided proof that the country had been systematically violating a range of treaties and agreements but also indicated how far Iran was prepared to go to attain nuclear capability. Israel’s response was a multitiered campaign, combining cyberwarfare, sabotage, airstrikes, drones, and assassinations. The authors fill out the details through interviews with numerous Mossad officers, but the most important change, they suggest, might turn out to be the willingness of several Arab states to reconsider their attitudes toward Israel. Growing Iranian belligerence toward everyone in the region made some level of acceptance start to look desirable, and a series of secret meetings took place. The outcome of these moves was the U.S.–sponsored Abraham Accords, which have evolved into a broad framework for cooperation. The problem is that Iran shows no sign of shelving its nuclear plans. It has become better at hiding and protecting assets and is building cyberwarfare and drone weapons of its own. “The Mossad’s secret war is not over,” write the authors. “Indeed, it may never end.” It is a sobering conclusion, but it is hard to see any alternatives. Throughout this remarkable narrative, the authors provide valuable context to the new Middle East picture.
Built on meticulous, diligent research, this book is key reading for those interested in geopolitical issues.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781668014561
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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